International Day of Peasant Struggle: A Global Fight for Food Sovereignty

April 17 is observed as the International Day of Peasant Struggle. This day commemorates the resistance against the massacre carried out by a reactionary government in Eldorado do Carajás, Brazil, in 1996. On this day, 19 farmers from Brazil's Landless Workers' Movement (MST) were killed in police violence. That same week, the second international conference of the International Farmers' Union, known in Spanish as La Via Campesina, held in Tlaxcala, Mexico, declared this day as the International Day of Peasant Struggle.

Accordingly, today, April 17, the International Day of Peasant Struggle is celebrated worldwide.

On April 17, 1996, in the state of Pará, Brazil, the state brutally suppressed farmers who were peacefully demonstrating for their rights. Nineteen farmer warriors were killed on the spot. This incident shocked farmers around the world, and under the leadership of La Via Campesina, April 17 was declared the 'International Day of Peasant Struggle'.

From the perspective of leftist politics, this repression was no coincidence. It was a continuation of the permanent character of repression that the capitalist state apparatus inflicts upon the working and producing classes. It was the day the bugle of the first organized international resistance was blown against the capitalist strategy of handing over land ownership to a handful of landlords and multinational corporations while displacing the actual tillers.

Looking at it from the perspective of farmers and farmers' unions, this day is established not just as a day of remembrance, but as a day of resistance against oppression, struggle against capitalist exploitation, and unity against imperialist intervention. In this article, an attempt will be made to analyze South Asian peasant movements from a leftist viewpoint while weaving them into this international context.

• Neoliberalism and La Via Campesina

The credit for making the international peasant movement integrated and powerful goes to La Via Campesina. Established in Belgium in 1993, this organization has brought millions of farmers from over 81 countries under one umbrella.

The main concept put forward by this movement is 'food sovereignty'. After the World Trade Organization (WTO) and multinational corporations turned the agricultural sector into a mere commodity for profit, farmers raised the slogan 'Our production, our food, our decision'. Food sovereignty holds that the producing power should have full rights over which seeds to plant, what technology to use, and how to distribute their produce.

The neoliberal economy that dominated the world after the 1990s hit the agricultural sector the hardest. Institutions like the WTO and the World Bank made futile attempts to imprison small farmers within the World Trade Organization by forcing subsidy cuts in the name of 'market freedom'. With the belief that agriculture is not a commodity for profit but a necessity, the peasant movement connected it to the grassroots movement for food sovereignty.

Korean farmer leader Lee Kyung-hae, concluding that the WTO was endangering the livelihoods of farmers and fishermen worldwide, climbed the security fence outside the World Trade Conference hall in Cancún, Mexico, and committed self-immolation. His message was, 'The WTO kills farmers, and even if I die, let other farmers around the world struggle against the exploitative policies of the WTO.' His suicide became a source of inspiration for farmers worldwide.

• Peasant Movement and Class Struggle

In the Marxist tradition, two trends are seen when analyzing the peasant movement. On one hand, Marx compared farmers to a 'sack of potatoes', questioning their political consciousness and organizational capacity, while on the other hand, thinkers like Lenin and Mao established farmers as the main force of revolution.

Thus, the history of peasant struggle began with the rebellion against feudalism. Whether it was the 'Peasants' Revolt' of medieval Europe (1381) or the peasant rebellion of Bhimdatta Panta in Nepal, the root cause of all these was land ownership and equitable distribution. With the rise of industrial capitalism in the 19th and 20th centuries, the problems of farmers took a new turn. The commercialization and profit-seeking of agriculture and the dominance of middlemen in the market began to increase. This started the process of small farmers being displaced from their own soil.

In various countries of Latin America, Africa, and Asia, farmers were forced to grow cash crops during the colonial era, which led to local food security crises and sowed the seeds of famine. South Asian peasant movements have struggled against all three forces: feudalism, colonialism, and capitalism.

The Telangana (1946–52) and Naxalbari (1967–71) movements in India are historical examples of this. These movements laid the foundation for organized struggle against land ownership, feudal oppression, and capitalist exploitation. With the rise of neoliberalism, La Via Campesina has become a model of internationalism for the peasant movement. La Via Campesina presented a new model for organizing the peasant movement at the international level.

This organization kept the concept of food sovereignty at the center, which defined food production not as a commodity for trade but as a fundamental right of the people. The fact that powerful peasant organizations from Latin American countries are members of La Via Campesina, its closeness and coordination with European and North American peasant movements, and its connection with peasant movements in Asia and Africa have enabled it to provide leadership to the global peasant movement.

The experience of La Via Campesina has also taught many important lessons to the South Asian peasant movement. Furthermore, the Florestan Fernandes National School of Brazil's MST has provided political training to thousands of Asian farmer activists, where farmers from Latin America and various countries of the world participate.

• South Asian Peasant Movement

The history of the peasant movement in South Asia seems to have started with the struggle against colonialism. The 'Pagdi Sambhal Jatta' movement that took place in 1907 in Faisalabad (then Lyallpur), Pakistan, is a major example of this. This movement was against British colonial land laws—the Doab Bari Act, the Punjab Land Colonization Act, and the Punjab Land Alienation Act. This movement was led by the great martyr Bhagat Singh's uncle Sardar Ajit Singh and his father Kishan Singh. It is considered the first organized peasant movement to shake British rule.

In the following decades, the Telangana movement (1946–52) in India waged an armed struggle against the Nizam of Hyderabad state. This movement was led by the Communist Party and organized millions of landless farmers.

The historic peasant conference held in Pakistan in 1970 became a milestone in South Asian leftist history. Held from March 23–25, 1970, this conference was attended by everyone from East Pakistan (present-day Bangladesh) farmer leader Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani to poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz.

'Surkh hai surkh hai

Asia surkh hai'

The conference, where this slogan echoed, provided political consciousness to a generation of farmers.

The history of the peasant movement in Nepal is equally long and full of struggle. The role played by the Communist Party after its ban in 2008, the movements against the Panchayat autocratic system, the movement of 2046, and the movements in the context of the end of the monarchy saw the decisive role of the Farmers' Union. Successfully including food sovereignty as a fundamental right in the Constitution of Nepal and the enactment of the Food Rights and Food Sovereignty Act is a major achievement of the Nepali peasant movement.

This act established food sovereignty as a fundamental right, making Nepal known as a pioneer in the world. The 2007 World Food Sovereignty Conference under La Via Campesina and the declaration made by South Asian women farmers in Kathmandu in 2010 called for unity against both the neoliberal capitalist system and the patriarchal system.

In this sequence, the historic peasant movement against India's three farm laws in 2020–21 united millions of farmers. Farmers from states like Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh staged sit-ins at the Delhi border for months. The biggest achievement of this movement was forcing the government to withdraw those laws.

Currently, the trade agreement with the US has raised new apprehensions among farmers. Under this agreement, India has agreed to reduce customs duties on US agricultural products, which poses a threat to the competitive capacity of local farmers.

According to senior farmer leader Hannan Mollah, former president of the All India Kisan Sabha, 'This agreement is a betrayal of the farmers. The Modi government has shamefully surrendered to the US.' Therefore, this struggle is being organized as a new front against neoliberal trade policies and multinational corporations.

• Challenges of the Peasant Movement

In today's time, there are basically four challenges for the peasant movement. First, corporate agriculture and monopoly over seeds. Multinational companies are making farmers dependent by introducing Genetically Modified (GMO) seeds. Local seeds that farmers have preserved for generations with the saying 'save seeds in times of famine' are being displaced. Patent rights over seeds have trapped farmers in a legal web where they cannot sow their own farm's seeds the following year.

Second, land encroachment. In the name of development, fertile land is being used for non-agricultural purposes for large industries, hydropower projects, and commercial plotting. In developing countries, as foreign companies seize thousands of hectares of land in the name of foreign investment, the real sons of the soil are becoming landless day by day. This is one of the main challenges today.

Third, the impact of climate change. Another important aspect of the international peasant struggle is environmental justice. Farmers in poor countries are bearing the punishment for the carbon emissions caused by developed countries. Due to unseasonal rain, drought, excessive rain, and lack of rain, the farmers' investment is going down the drain.

Fourth, market and price determination. Farmers cannot set the price of the goods they produce themselves. Brokers in the international market and large supermarket chains control the prices. This maintains the market paradox where consumers have to buy at high prices and producers do not get fair prices. The global peasant movement must also intervene in this.

• Context of Nepal

Although Nepal is an agricultural country, the condition of its farmers is pathetic. The peasant movement that started even before 2007 has not yet reached a logical conclusion. Unequal distribution of land remains. Even now, the actual tillers are landless. Due to the lack of modernization in agriculture and low investment by the state, the young generation is forced to leave agriculture and go for foreign employment.

The participation of women in peasant struggles taking place at the international level is exemplary. Women do most of the agricultural labor worldwide, but their access to land ownership and decision-making processes is extremely low. With the belief that food sovereignty is not possible without the guarantee of women's rights, women farmers are now fighting for their identity and rights.

Thus, the international peasant struggle is not just a movement of a professional group; it is an issue connected to the future of all humanity. If farmers do not survive, not only will there be a food crisis in the world, but human sensitivity will also end. On one hand, the unity of small farmers against corporate power is an essential necessity today, and on the other hand, governments must adopt people-oriented and farmer-oriented policies instead of trade-oriented policies.

The land should belong to those who till it, the seeds should belong to those who save them, and every citizen who eats food should be concerned about where and how the food they eat came from. The fair price of the farmer's sweat and their self-respect is the foundation of a prosperous world.

Therefore, the peasant movement of the world and South Asia is not limited to protest alone. It has also suggested an alternative path. Promoting 'agro-ecology' or organic farming is the right answer to capitalist agriculture. Only chemical-free farming, the use of local resources, and the conservation of biodiversity can save both the earth and humanity.

Today's International Day of Peasant Struggle is not limited to the memory of martyrs. It is also the vocal form of the anti-imperialist movement taking place from Palestine to Latin America and through Africa, which has been devastated by colonialism. Today's peasant movement understands that the toxic idea of inequality is hidden in capitalism. Therefore, this movement is not limited to farmers but has focused on the anti-imperialist movement.